


Bliss

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: due South
Genre: Amnesia, Community: ds_flashfiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-20
Updated: 2010-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-09 14:56:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"Hello," the other guy said. "We seem to find ourselves in quite a predicament."</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Bliss

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sweet Memories](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/872) by Kayla. 



> This story was written for the Amnesty challenge and first posted January 4, 2004.
> 
> Thanks to Lynnmonster for beta!

He curled closer to the warm body in his arms. Covers had gone missing somewhere, but maybe if he sweet-talked it just right he could get--

Fuck. He didn't know the name of the person he was cuddling with--lying on top of, really--let alone how likely they were to get up and shut the window. He rolled away and tried to sit up, but stopped short with a gasp as pain exploded through his back. And then the guy--guy! It was a guy!--was sitting up, too, with a slick of wet on his bare chest, because he was stripped down to his boxer shorts.

From his half-propped position he tried to look around--it wasn't cold because the window was open, for one thing, it was cold because they were in an alley in the half-light, lying on some cardboard, but at least he had his clothes still on. The guy, though, the big strong mostly-naked drooled-on guy with the oddly neat dark hair and the no problem sitting up, was frowning at him. He realized that the frown was the same one he'd had himself a second ago, when he figured out that he didn't have a name to put to the body beside him.

Somehow it wasn't until that moment that he realized he didn't have a name to put to the body he was _in_, either. "Uh," his voice came out rusty, and he coughed, which only made the agony of his back worse. He cleared his throat quickly, swallowing hard, pushing the pain away and smiling stupidly. "Hi there."

"Hello," the other guy said. "We seem to find ourselves in quite a predicament."

"Yeah," he said. "_Predicament_." What _was_ this guy? An alien from the planet Vocab?

"Do you have any knowledge of how we came to be here?"

He shook his head, and pushed himself up a little further, so he was almost sitting up straight, still braced on his arms, pain-sweat already turning cold on the back of his neck. He didn't like being loomed over by this nearly-naked guy who he'd recently been sleeping on. Not that he thought the guy would hurt him, because he was pretty sure he wouldn't, just... not right to be laying on the ground in front of him.

"No," he said, "I got no knowledge of _anything_. You?"

He shook his head, frowning. The guy's eyes were dark blue-grey, and focused firmly on him. "Does your head hurt anywhere? I suppose we might both have sustained concussions..."

"Which just coincidentally made us both lose our memory? What soap opera did you just walk out of?"

Mr. Smarty-pants' mouth tightened. "I'm simply trying to ascertain what may have happened. Do you have any better suggestions?" Whoa, got a little snappish there. Apparently they had tempers on his planet, even if they talked so nice you couldn't hear it coming.

He tried to shrug, and ended up gasping and nearly falling over. The other guy noticed, of course. The irritation was gone, just like that, replaced with a concerned look. "Are you injured?"

"I don't know," he admitted, which, on his own planet, probably Planet Stupid Macho, meant something like, _I think I'm about to die here, actually._ "My back..."

Instantly Mr. Mostly-naked moved around and knelt behind him, steadying him with one big hand on his shoulder, another near his hip. "Oh," he said, "Oh dear."

That didn't sound good, almost as not-good as it felt. "Oh dear? What the hell does that mean, oh dear?"

There was no response, just a ripping sound, and then his flannel shirt was pushed forward off him, the back in two halves, messily torn. When he looked down, he realized he was wearing a vest. "Four bullets, my friend," the guy behind him said, quietly. "At least two different calibers, I'm not certain."

He went on sitting still, trying to compute _I got shot four times and I don't remember why_ while big steady hands ripped the velcro strips open and lifted the vest away. Then there were fingers at the base of his t-shirt, brushing against bare skin at the small of his back, and he said quickly, "Leave it."

The fingers went still, but stayed put, individual spots of warmth against his back. "I have to see how badly you're hurt. We should get you to a hospital, and contact the police."

He picked up the battered vest from where it had fallen in his lap, and turned it over. Somehow he knew just where to look, and there it was, a CPD stamp. "Chicago Police Department," he said quietly, tracing the letters with unsteady fingers. "I _am_ the police."

"Well, then we should go to the police, who know who you are, and get help. After you've been to the hospital." His alien friend didn't seem to share his sense of that being a really bad idea, and since he didn't even know himself why it was, he'd have to buy some time.

He closed his eyes, breathing shallowly, trying to gauge how much pain he was really in, how bad he was hurt, whether maybe the other guy was right and he had to go no matter what he thought might happen. "Wait a sec. And _don't_ pull the shirt. Am I bleeding?"

Fingers, light over his shirt, brushing here and there. "Yes."

"But not much, not enough to bleed out, or I wouldn't have woken up." He opened his eyes again, certain. "So I'm okay, or I will be if you just leave it alone. You pull the shirt off, it'll open the cuts up again."

"You likely have broken ribs, possibly even internal injuries. You should be in hospital."

Something about that tickled his brain, and he chased it, eager for something to think about other than the pain. "In hospital?"

"Yes. Hospital. It's a large building with a number of doctors, where people receive medical treatment."

He rolled his eyes, safe out of sight from the maniac with the gentle hands. "Yeah, I know what a hospital is. I just meant, you said _in hospital_, not, in _the_ hospital."

"Well, yes, of course. In hospital."

"Canadian," he realized. That would explain the little accent, and the way he talked. He'd been nearly right about the alien thing. "You have got to be Canadian."

"And you're an officer of the law," the Canuck said, "but the point is that you're hurt, and we need to get out of this alley."

"Hey!" He reached back and grabbed the Canadian's wrist, stopping the hand at the hem of his shirt. "I told you. Leave it. We gotta figure out what we're doing here, who fired four shots into my back and left us here, and why we haven't been picked up already, if I'm a cop. I got a wallet back there?"

"Ah. Yes." Fingers in his ass pocket, weird sensation but there was no way he could reach back there himself right now. Same big warm fingers pressed it into his hand, and he pulled it around and flipped it open.

Raymond Vecchio, Detective First Grade, Chicago PD. He stared at the blond guy staring out of the picture at him, stared at the shiny badge, but there was something wrong here, something very very wrong.

"Hey, buddy, that picture look anything like me?"

Instead of moving around him, the Canuck laid one hand on his side and leaned over his shoulder, so they were nearly touching all down his battered back and that broad bare chest. He didn't think about it, kept his hand steady on the ID and ignored the other guy's fingers wrapping around his as he looked at the badge, then at his face. Close, very very close, and the guy was practically naked.

"It's a very good likeness, ah, Detective--"

He shut his eyes and shook his head, steadying himself against the feel of the Canuck's breath on his cheek. "It's a fake, buddy."

"I beg your pardon?" When he opened his eyes again, he found himself on the receiving end of a seriously disbelieving eyebrow, and wondered how the hell he could convince this guy he knew what he was talking about, especially when, technically speaking, he didn't.

Still. He had to go with his gut on this one. It wasn't like he had anything else to go on, at this point. "Hey, do I look like a Vecchio to you?"

The eyebrow shifted from disbelieving to politely thoughtful, but he doubted he'd actually changed the Canuck's mind as easily. "I really couldn't say. You're the only one I know."

He'd just have to stick to his guns. "Well, I'm not Vecchio. I don't know who I am, I don't know why I know, but I promise you this ID is a fake. So why the hell have I got fake cop ID and a fake vest?"

And there it was, stubborn Canuck. "Maybe they're genuine. There's no evidence to suggest otherwise. You could very well be this Detective Vecchio."

"No." He shook his head harder, because he knew this, he knew this for sure, even if he didn't have any hard evidence for it. "I am _not_ Vecchio, you hear me?" He tried to raise his voice on that, without really thinking about it, breathed too deep and then froze, letting his air hiss out slowly, through the pain.

Through that, the hand on his side stroked up and down, gentle, easing him through. The Canuck had big hands--and, um, warm, he thought quickly, before his brain went where apparently all guys' brains were programmed to go, always, no matter what they did or didn't know. "I mean it," he whispered, when he could, to distract himself. "I'm not." Not what, he'd sort of maybe lost track of, but that was okay, general denials were always appropriate.

Except maybe not right now, because the Canuck seemed to realize what he was doing and pulled away, which just left him feeling colder. He couldn't imagine how cold the Canuck was, in nothing but a pair of thin cotton boxer shorts. From what seemed like a long way away, behind him, he said, "Perhaps you're undercover."

"As a cop? Cops don't go undercover as other cops, buddy, that's just crazy."

"Mm."

"‘Mm,' what the hell is that? You saying it's not crazy?" He could hear his own voice getting frantic, and didn't know how to stop it. All he could think was to take deep breaths, but that hurt too much, even if it might distract the Canuck into coming back and warming him up again. He clenched his fists in his lap, instead.

"It would seem unusual. How do you explain the evidence, then?"

He ignored the uncomfortable squirm at the pit of his stomach, swallowed hard and forced the words out evenly. "I'm some kinda criminal, aren't I? Impersonating an officer for starters, but I musta had some reason to, musta been doing something."

"And who does that make me, then?" The voice behind him sounded awful lost, made his stomach turn even more, and he nearly cursed out loud, but somehow bit it back--the Canuck wouldn't like it. Laboriously, he turned around to look at the guy, sitting huddled with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, and wished he could crawl over there and hug him, wished his hands could feel as warm and comforting on that pale skin as the Canuck's had on him.

"I dunno," he said quietly. He wished he could say the guy wasn't involved, wrong place wrong time, but he couldn't help feeling like they couldn't possibly be strangers, even if the way they woke up was some kind of freak accident, which he somehow doubted. "Accomplice?"

Dark eyebrows went up, and he said quietly, "I don't think I'm a criminal, and I don't think you are either, even if you're not Detective Vecchio." The Canuck looked around the alley, his eyes touching here and there, bouncing off everything, and then he was on his feet, moving around, checking out the scene.

_I'm not Vecchio._ He knew it in his gut, like he knew up from down, like he knew Chicago in every breath he took. He stared at the ID some more, then stuffed the wallet awkwardly into the front pocket of his jeans, and wondered what the hell they were going to do. Couldn't go to the cops, for starters, and that would mean hospitals were out too. The Canuck picked up a cowboy hat from a pile of garbage, came back over and knelt in front of him, still looking around.

"I think you were protecting me," he announced. "How do your feet feel?"

"My feet?" Though now that the Canuck mentioned it, they hurt. Not as bad as his back, but then he hadn't been shot in the feet, as far as he could tell. "Kinda achy, I guess."

Canuck nodded. "Your knees will probably also feel strained, once you're up and walking. I think I was brought here, my clothing, and unfortunately my identification, was taken from me, and whoever wished to kill me put me at this end of the alley and retreated to that end, where they would have a convenient escape route when they were finished. You jumped from the fire escape above," and he pointed up above them, where sure enough there was a fire escape, "and interposed yourself. When we woke, you'd been lying on top of me, as though you were trying to cover my body with your own."

Cover in what sense exactly? But he wasn't going to argue with an explanation that made him sound more like a hero than a horndog. "Oh," he said finally. "So what's the hat? You think the perps dropped it?"

The Canuck frowned at it, flipping it over and feeling along the inside brim. He pulled out some money, Canadian and American mixed, but there was nothing else there. "I think it's mine," he said, setting it on his head and then quickly taking it off again.

"Why'n't you leave it on?" It looked kinda goofy, but it was something. He looked less naked with the hat, somehow.

The Canuck shook his head firmly, still staring at the hat. "It's not just a hat, it's part of a uniform. I shouldn't wear it in this state."

"Uniform? You mean you think _you're_ a cop or something? But you're Canadian. You've got the funny money and everything."

"I believe I'm a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A Mountie, in common parlance." He traced a finger along the edge of the Hat's wide flat brim. "Come along, my friend. We can't stay in this alley, and if you won't go to hospital we need to go somewhere so that I can examine your injuries properly."

"Okay, Mountie buddy. Just, uh," he raised a hand, and the Mountie hauled him easily to his feet, steadying him when he stumbled forward--his _knees_, Jesus, he hadn't been kidding--and had to rest against him for a second before he got his balance. The Mountie didn't seem to mind, slung an arm around him and steadied him, and if he was leaning as much for the warmth and the touch as the support, well, nobody needed to know that.

"Okay," he said, when he could stand on his own, "well, pitter patter, let's get at ‘er."

 

* * *

The Mountie settled his friend--his very good, bullet-taking friend--into the passenger seat of the car whose door locks were opened by the keys from his pocket. As he settled into the driver's seat, his friend said, "You sure it's legal for you to drive, with no ID?"

"I don't even think it's legal for me to drive without shoes," he admitted as he started the car, glancing around the street and adjusting the rearview mirror slightly, "but under the circumstances, I feel it's necessary."

The slender blond nodded, grimacing with what might have been pain from his injuries, or something else. "Bet you've never broken a law before, otherwise, huh, Mountie?"

He couldn't resist the impulse to reach out and set one hand on the jean-clad knee. "I doubt you've broken so many yourself, my friend. You'll see, I'm sure there's some perfectly reasonable explanation."

He shook his head, turning his gaze out the window, but didn't pull away from the Mountie's hand. After a moment, he said, "You gotta drive faster than this. You're gonna draw attention."

"I'm obeying the posted limits."

"Yeah, I know, and that's gonna attract attention, you're trying too hard, you look suspicious, they're gonna pull you over. And then, half-naked guy who might be a Mountie, banged-up guy with a fake badge--it ain't gonna be pretty."

He worried at his lip, but, in for a penny, in for a pound, and he suspected his friend's instincts for dealing with the city were more reliable than his own uninformed deductions; if he was, in fact, a Mountie, then he was a long way from home. He pressed his bare foot down harder on the accelerator, until he found himself moving at a pace similar to that of the sparse traffic surrounding them. Judging from the light, it was barely past dawn, and the morning rush had not yet begun.

He glanced over frequently at the blond, who stared out at the city with a lost expression on his face. Though he could tell himself that this was a foreign place he wouldn't have recognized in any case, his friend could offer himself no such reassurance; this was his home, and he didn't seem to know it at all. He turned suddenly, meeting the Mountie's eyes, though he quickly shifted his attention back to driving under the scrutiny. "Hey, buddy, where are we going? And how do you know how to get there?"

Ah. He'd wondered when he would have to explain and defend this course of action. "We're going to the address on your identification." He started immediately to protest, but the Mountie raised a hand quickly to cut him off. "If it were unsafe for you to list an actual address on your identification, then we will likely find nothing there at all; but if the identification is valid, we may find your home, and some clues at least to your identity. To say nothing of a chance to look after your injuries. And... I seem to have a map of Chicago in my head."

The blond snorted, but smiled a little. "Boy scout, huh, Mountie? Bet you memorized it before you came down to the big bad city. Wonder what you're doing here?"

He'd been wondering that himself. "I could be pursuing a case," he suggested, and his friend nodded, and then went still.

"That'd have to be a pretty important case. Whoever you were after would have to be..." His friend shrank into himself as his words trailed off, trying to hold away from the seat back while moving away from him, finally twitching his knee out from under the Mountie's hand. "Shit," he muttered, and leaned his head against the window. "I'm probably the one you're after. Fake ID, some big deal, posing as a cop to hide out. You're probably here to arrest me."

He shook his head. "That makes no sense; if you were frightened that I would bring you to justice, you could have simply let me die. Instead you risked your own life to protect me."

The blond shook his head doggedly. "We don't know that for sure. We don't know anything."

"That's true," he said as he turned the final corner and, spotting an open stretch of curb, quickly pulled in. He reached out deliberately and laid his hand on the blond's shoulder, holding him still. "We don't even know I'm here on a case. Perhaps we're friends, perhaps I came down to the city to visit you. Perhaps I've been here to visit you before, and that's why I know how to navigate."

The blond met his eyes, and said, "You think we're friends?"

He swallowed hard at the sight of such naked uncertainty. "I'd be willing to bet my hat on it."

His friend nodded, a shy smile curving his mouth. "Okay, then, buddy. Let's see what we've got, here."

 

* * *

It took a few minutes of trying keys before he found the one that opened the apartment door. He knew the Mountie was getting nervous--any second one of the other doors would open, someone would spot them, shots would ring out, and the vest was dangling uselessly from the Mountie's hand, along with the Hat. Still, he couldn't bring himself to open the door, when God only knew what was on the other side, and instead leaned gingerly forward, resting his head against the smooth surface and trying to pull himself together.

Beside him, he heard the Mountie say, "Ah," like this somehow made perfect sense, and then that big body was squeezing up to the door beside him. He turned his head, opening his eyes, and mouth, to tell him that this wasn't an American door-opening custom, just him funking out--but he had his ear pressed to the door, his eyes lightly closed so that the long dark lashes hovered above his cheeks as he listened. He stared, openmouthed, until the Mountie opened his eyes and gave him a brilliant smile, and said, "All quiet, my friend. I believe it's safe to enter."

He snapped his mouth shut and nodded, and then there was nothing to do but push the door open and stumble inside.

He didn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't this--a quiet apartment, cluttered but ordinary looking, and somehow welcoming. His glance through an open door fell on a rumpled unmade bed, and he was suddenly intensely conscious of the early hour. Without thought, he took a step toward the bedroom, and then the Mountie said, "First things first," and was dragging him away by the wrist.

He didn't even have time to argue before they were in the bathroom, and the Mountie pushed him to sit on the toilet--the lid was already down--and started looking for a first aid kit.

"Kitchen," he said, after a second, with no idea why except that he was sure. "And..."

As the Mountie headed to the kitchen for the first aid kit, he followed, because he knew where hidden things went, just as he knew to keep a first aid kit near the front door, the stove, and the knives. So while the Mountie pulled open random cupboards, he made a beeline for the sink and dropped to his knees, pulling open the cupboard and reaching precariously inside. The Mountie knelt down beside him, steadying him with an arm at his shoulders, and he leaned into that support as he groped behind the sink until his fingers brushed a little box. It was secured with duct tape, but came off easily enough in his hand, and he pulled it out, heart hammering. He could hear the Mountie breathing, almost in his ear.

He opened the box and found a passport and some cash. Flipped the passport open and breathed a careful sigh of relief. It felt like coming home, it was real and he knew it, the picture was out-of-date and weird looking like ID should be, and the name rolled easily off his tongue. "Stanley Raymond Kowalski."

He grinned, and looked up to find the Mountie looking slightly amused. "Your name is Stanley Kowalski?"

"Yeah," he snapped, instantly defensive, "It is. Wanna make something of it?"

"No, no," and those big hands were suddenly splayed in front of him, all placating. "I merely meant... perhaps you go by Ray? That might be why your other identity had that name."

He scowled. "I'm not Ray," he said, ignoring how the words felt like a lie in his mouth, "don't you call me that. I told you it was a fake. This is the real deal. My name is Stanley." He scowled harder. _Stanley_? The Mountie had a point, that couldn't possibly be right. "Stan," he amended. "Call me Stan."

The Mountie nodded, and gestured toward the bathroom as he stood up and grabbed the first aid kit. "All right, then. Stan it is. Now, Stan, my very good friend, if you'd allow me to have a look at your back?"

Still clutching the little box in his hands--he felt like it might disappear if he let it go--he jerked his chin in the opposite direction. "Bedroom, buddy, because I think I might wanna be lying down for this."

The Mountie smiled as he pulled him up, showing him a mouthful of almost-perfect white teeth, and said, "As you wish, Stan."

Standing there with the Mountie's hand wrapped warm and steady around his, he couldn't remember how he knew, but he thought that phrase was supposed to mean something else.

 

* * *

He followed Stan through the bedroom door, and then stopped dead, staring at the open closet.

"Hey," Stan said, apparently similarly arrested, standing near the foot of the untidy bed, "is that ...?"

He cleared his throat and raised one hand to his face, rubbing at his forehead as he tried to compose himself behind that slight shield. "You don't recognize it?"

Stan looked at him with a half-smile that felt as familiar and right as the red serge tunic hanging in the closet, though he had no conscious recollection of seeing either one before. "I don't think it's mine, buddy. But I do think I've seen it before, which makes sense since it's hanging in my closet in my apartment, right? I think it's yours."

He nodded, moving toward the closet, feeling almost hypnotized by this affirmation of his hypothesized identity. He stretched out a hand to touch the tunic, and the trousers hanging beside. The uniform was freshly laundered, perfectly pressed. Clothes he suspected--hoped--were Stan's had been pushed messily back to make space for the uniform.

Taking a steadying breath, the Mountie opened the tunic. His fingers knew just where to find the neatly sewn tape where his name was written, and he read it off. "Fraser, Benton." With a quick confirming glance at the uniform's insignia, he smiled and turned to Stan, who stood watching him with something very like delight. "Stan Kowalski, I'm Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP."

Stan's smile widened, and he reached out a hand to shake. "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Benton, buddy."

Benton squeezed Stan's hand in both of his, warmed by his ready acceptance of the peculiar introduction. "Likewise, Stan."

Stan didn't let go. His eyes were very blue, crinkled at the corners with his smile, and Benton found that their hands fit together very well. "I mean, weird," Stan clarified, still smiling, "But a pleasure."

"It has indeed been weird and a pleasure." They went on smiling at each other insipidly until Benton noticed Stan's hand shaking slightly in his. He quickly stepped closer, shifting one hand to Stan's opposite elbow to steady him. "Here now, lie down."

Stan was beyond resisting, and quickly settled supine on the bed. Benton opened up the first aid kit and located the scissors, noting with relief the presence of a copious amount of tape and strapping bandages. As he turned back to the bed, Stan laughed, his chuckle quickly trailing into a pained hiss, drawing Benton's attention away from his back, where the thin gray cotton of his shirt was marred by three bloodstains, one ominously wet at the center. Benton moved to kneel on the bed beside him as Stan reached out and picked up a photograph that had been propped at the night stand, positioned so that it was scarcely visible except to the person lying with his head on the pillow. Stan admired the picture for a second, then tilted it so that Benton could see.

He stared, briefly transfixed, and then said, "Does that picture look anything like me?"

Stan grinned, and looked from the glossy print to him and back. "Yeah, Benton, it's a very good likeness." He touched a finger lightly to the picture, as though physical contact could restore him to the smiling self shown there. "We gotta be buddies, then. You let me wear the Hat."

Benton would have thought their friendship was evident from their pose, arms around each other's shoulders, leaning into each other almost intimately and smiling as though they'd never been happier, despite the bruises he could make out on his own face, but Stan did have a point. "As you say, we now know for certain that we are friends, and have been at least since Christmastime."

Stan nodded, and settled down again, though Benton noticed that he didn't return the picture to its place on the night stand. He remained still for a moment, smiling fondly at the back of Stan's head, studying the sleep-addled way it stood on end, the early sunlight glinting off the brush of gold, and then the scissors dangling in his hand recalled him to reality. Stan's injuries had already been neglected for far too long.

He cut carefully, easing the fabric away from Stan's back. Four large bruises bloomed across his pale skin, rimed with blood. Three clustered close, high on his right side--what would have been his own left side, Benton realized, the traditional heart-target. The last was lower, on the left but close to the center of his back. The bruise dipped into the shallow groove of his spine, and Benton touched there first, lightly. Stan twitched under his fingers, then lay still. The bruised skin was warm under his fingers, damp with sweat, and the sight of himself, touching this man, his partner, his friend, this way, shook him for a moment. He closed his eyes, reaching out blindly to the first aid kit, picking up the paper-foil packet of an alcohol wipe, and then opened his eyes again as he opened the packet.

The antiseptic lemon smell steadied him, and when Stan moved again, it was more like fidgeting, and this was only first aid, after all. He cleaned away the blood as gently as he could, using one wipe after another and leaving the cuts themselves for last. Stan hissed at the first touch of alcohol to broken skin, and Benton murmured, "I'm sorry," but he knew it had to be done, and continued steadily.

Stan muttered, "Yeah, I know you are," into the pillow, and when Benton looked up, he had one hand wrapped tight around the box that held his identification, the knuckles white. The other hand was open, one fingertip still lightly touching the photograph of the two of them. He could see a muscle jumping in Stan's jaw, and then he returned his eyes to his work, and kept on, making small sympathetic noises each time Stan gave vocal evidence of his pain.

When he'd finished the clean-up, Stan's shallow breaths were coming faster than before, and there was fresh sweat covering him from his nape to the edge of his jeans. "Nearly finished now," he said, when Stan had had a chance to catch his breath, and when he'd been acknowledged with another nod, he reached for the tube of antimicrobial ointment, squeezing it neatly onto each cut before laying a sterile gauze pad overtop. He tore strips of tape and smoothed them into place as lightly as he could without sacrificing a good seal.

"All right," he said, "I'll have to check your ribs."

Stan nodded, pushed up with his arms under him and his face pressed firmly into the pillow. A sound emerged which probably translated as "Go for it," and he set his fingers firmly against Stan's back and began to probe.

He'd hoped he'd know, somehow, when he encountered a broken rib. He hadn't imagined that Stan would be able to reach back and wrap a hand around his wrist, but he made no sound to indicate that the motion pained him. His fingers around Benton's wrist gripped hard enough to grind the bones, but Stan didn't actually attempt to move his touch away, so after a moment, Benton continued, feeling the slight sickening shift of bone, once, twice--

"Three," Stan gasped, raising his head and releasing Benton's wrist, as the next ridge of bone held reassuringly solid under his touch. He shook out his right hand, nearly numb and the wrist red, and then picked up the strapping bandages.

"You'll have to, ah," he said, and Stan started to push himself up, seeming to know what he meant already. He made it to his elbows, then stopped, head hanging, and Benton dropped the bandages and leaned over him, sliding both arms around his chest and pulling up. Stan couldn't very well lean back against him, but relaxed into the support. Benton pulled him upright, and didn't instantly move away, remaining for a moment with Stan in the circle of his arms, kneeling back-to-front on the rumpled bed.

It was when he noticed that they were both breathing rapidly that he let go, slowly, of course, so as not to unbalance Stan, and moved away a bit. Bandages. Ribs. Stan was in pain, and needed his help, not... not anything else.

He and Stan worked together easily, in near silence, Stan anchoring the bandage end with one hand and grunting, "Tighter, no, tighter, come on, I can take it, Ben," until his ribs were wrapped to his exacting standards. Benton secured the bandages with the safety pins that lay in the case, and then put his hand to Stan's shoulder, squeezing once to let him know he was done.

As soon as he did, Stan lowered himself again to the bed. Benton looked down at his face, tightly drawn with pain, sheened with sweat. "Painkillers?"

Stan nodded, eyes shut tight, and reached out one arm to the night table, getting his fingertips on the drawer-pull, but without enough leverage to budge it. Benton reached out, laying his hand over Stan's, and pulled the drawer open. He heard, as he did, the rattle of pills in a plastic bottle, and a series of rolling metal thunks against the wooden side of the drawer, and a papery crinkle.

For a moment he simply couldn't compute most of the contents of the drawer, and he was in the act of reaching inside for the Tylenol bottle when the images on the crinkled magazine page registered.

He must have made some sound, as he dropped his hand and shifted his weight back, away from the drawer. Stan raised his head with an inquiring noise, and, seeing something in his eyes--Benton had no idea what; he wasn't seeing much himself at that point--dragged himself closer and reached into the drawer.

The magazine had a small bottle half-adhered to it, and Stan dropped the lot onto the bed and stared. He picked up the bottle first, flipped up the top and squeezed a little of the contents onto one finger; Ben could see the way it made his fingers slip quickly against each other when he tested them against one another.

Then he dropped it again, and his hand came down on Benton's knee, making him suddenly acutely conscious of his state of undress.

"Well," Stan said, and when Benton shook his head and forced his eyes to focus, blinking away his shock, Stan was smiling rather mischievously, "you know what this means, buddy, don'tcha?"

 

* * *

Ben was looking a bit freaked, but when Stan waggled his eyebrows at him, he finally unfroze. "Ah, I'm not sure, I do, actually."

Stan rolled his eyes, and reached out a hand. "C'mon, help me up, here."

Ben did, grasping him by the wrist. Stan skated his lubed finger over the back of Ben's hand as he got his balance, and felt him startle a little. "You sure you don't, Ben?"

His fair cheeks were pink, and he glanced down at the skin rag--folded permanently open, wet-wrinkled, to a page showing what one skinny blond, one big dark-haired guy with a Hat, and one pair of handcuffs could do on a day off--then quickly away. "I believe you're jumping to conclusions."

"Yeah, that's what you thought when I said I wasn't Vecchio, too." Ben shrugged a little at that, and glanced back at him without meeting his eyes, first at his face and then down, at the front of his jeans, and Stan grinned. Got him. "Look, your uniform's here. We were lying there together and that felt normal, didn't it? Til you realized you didn't know what was going on? Drawerful of supplies. Picture of us hanging all over each other in public next to the bed. What do you think?"

"I think all your evidence is circumstantial, Detective Kowalski."

Stan rolled his eyes. "So is your evidence I'm a detective, Constable. Look, there's only one way to know for sure, right?"

Ben did make eye contact, then, staring at him all wide-eyed. "Stan..."

"What? We kiss, it's gross, we're wrong. Or, we kiss, it's not gross at all, we're right. What do we got to lose?"

Ben's mouth moved a bit, but he didn't say anything, and Stan scooted closer to him, reaching out and setting one hand on his hip. "Just," he said quietly, "just don't let me get carried away, right?" For the first time the poleaxed look on Ben's face softened, and he leaned closer. Stan kept talking, reeling him in inch by inch, word by word. "Don't wanna fuck up my ribs, and I bet I won't remember if--"

Ben's open mouth touched his, lightly, one of Ben's hands on his shoulder, the other on his hip, but he found he was greedy for the connection, and he pressed forward and up, into the kiss, thrusting his tongue roughly into the heat of Ben's mouth, skidding over teeth, meeting the answering muscular push of Ben's tongue. Their lips slid, slick, against each other, their mouths fitting together like their hands did, like they did, didn't have to remember anything to know this was right. Then Ben's hand was on his face, pushing him, gently, pulling out of the kiss, but not all the way, their lips still brushing with every breath--Christ, it hurt to breathe, but then what did that matter?--as Ben called to him. "Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray--"

"Yeah," he gasped, "Ow, yeah, yeah--hey." Ray, Ben was saying, when he'd said not to, when Ben himself had said he wouldn't. Ray, in a moment of forgetfulness in the middle of all the other forgetting. He tightened his own hand, which was when he realized it was under Ben's boxer shorts, on the firm curve of his ass. Ray, in a moment that felt like truth. "I thought we agreed I'm Stan," he said, quietly, kissing lightly back, trying to remember to breathe right.

Ben smiled against his mouth. "Sorry. Ray just felt right."

"What? No, uh, no hard evidence?" His hand slid sideways, in pursuit of his own stupid double tender, and Ben laughed a little.

"Maybe I just know you're Ray," he said. "Maybe I just have this feeling that I'm kissing Detective Ray Kowalski, and I don't know why, but I'm very certain."

He'd answered to it, before he thought about it, and he knew that whatever he might be faking, what he answered to in bed probably wasn't it. "Yeah," he whispered, "okay, I'll give you that one."

Ben's tongue flickered out, and slid across Ray's lower lip, just a little ahead of the kiss. "Thank you kindly, Ray," Ben said, and, a little later, "Your ribs," in a firm voice that made Ray sit back.

He looked around the room, at the clock that read 5:54 in glowing red numbers, the bullets that had rolled to the front of the night table drawer, the remains of his shirt lying next to the first aid kit, and closed his eyes. "We can figure the rest of this out later, right?" He felt lips brushing against his cheek, up and down like a nod, and finally, just for a minute, Ray let himself relax.


End file.
